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ADULT L EARNING
“Adult learning is also fundamentally important for helping people acquire skills that enable them to flourish”
learning the piano (or any other type of instrument) can make us better at acquiring new skills, and assist with our mind function well into old age. Embroidery, too, has ardent advocates. It was once considered a therapeutic pastime for shell-shocked soldiers – the slow, deliberate actions and repetition were reckoned to sooth trouble minds. Something that definitely chimes today, given the worrying times in which we live. While acquiring new hobbies and interests is perhaps what most of us would associate with adult learning, it’s also fundamentally important for helping people acquire the skills that enable them to flourish in their working lives. According to one report, there’s a looming skills gap that will urgently need filling, with 90% of employees estimated to be in need of some retraining. The government regularly refers to the need to
ensure participation in lifelong learning, and late last year, it announced funding for 400 courses to adults aged 24 and over, who hadn’t previously gained level-three qualifications (equivalent to A-levels), as a way of boosting their employability. The subjects on offer will focus on high-demand areas including health and social care, IT, maths, science and agriculture. As so often happens, however, the hardest part is reaching the people who could benefit most. In its annual review, the Learning and Work Institute found that lockdown had coincided with a growing appetite for learning, with over four in ten
adults involved in some form of education. But what their report also showed was that people who were younger, in full-time employment, better educated and from more privileged backgrounds, were far more likely to take advantage of these learning opportunities. The challenge remains one of inclusion – ensuring that everyone can benefit from the huge number of opportunities out there and finding ways of making that a reality. There’s no shortage of ideas. One is to bring back the salary sacrifice scheme, axed in 2018, so that workers get a tax break from investing in their
SPRING/SUMMER 2021
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